Switching Gears
by Stealth Works
Summary: Jack is a low end racer, on the tropical islands San Asmira & Los LaReina. But, when two crashes leaves Jack without a car, and the loss of a friend, it seems Jack's life can't get any worse. Against all the odds though, it gets shifted up a gear with a winning supercar. Jack now learns what true speed is... and with it, he's ready to avenge his friend. (T for Language)


**Dedicated to Elemental Dragon Slayer, who inspired me to do this.**

**Go check out his story: Switching Lanes (Which is definitely not where I got my title from) (****(Yes it was))**

**Also, check out The Seacrest Files... by The Ace Combatant, and its amazing (look for it under the NFS section)**

**WARING: EACH CHAPTER TAKES ME LIKE 2-3 MONTHS, I HAVE INTENTIONS TO FINISH IT THOUGH - JUST BARE WITH ME**

**DISCLAIMER: HAHAHAHA I OWN EVERYTHING IN THIS FTW... OK EXCEPT the various cars... those belong to the various manufactures, but the characters and setting I do own.**

**FYI Its set in 2015 just so I can include newer model years of cars. Also, the two cities are a lot like GTA V San Andreas and Los Santos, except I never played it. Just watched Achievement Hunter, but I have an idea what it looks like. Just think the Spanish & modern architecture. So yeah... ENJOY.**

DATE: April 5th, 2015

Jack woke with a start. Beams of Light streamed through the gaps of the white shades covering the windows. He yawned and stretched a little, welcoming the dull ache of yesterday's activities and sleep. 'Thank god its Saturday' Pausing for a moment, Jack thought 'TGIS' He smiled at his completely original thought. He looked at the digital clock sat at his bed-side table: It read 8:30. Jack was an early riser since he wanted to take advantage of the full day.

Jack sat up and sighed at the prospect of actually getting out of his nice cozy bed… Except, he was now bored, and the boredom was getting the best of him. He sighed with aspiration, before jumping out of bed, grabbing some dark jeans and a t-shirt with a Volkswagen logo right in the center of it, and quickly putting them on, freezing the entire time… Ug now he missed his bed...

He walked downstairs, trying to be relatively quiet. He walked down the hallway, seeing the sun crest over the roof of the house behind them. After shaking himself out of a temporary trance at the sunrise. He turned into the kitchen, grabbed the paper off the table, and sat on the gradient counter, picking an apple out of a bowl in the corner of the counter.

The headline on the newspaper read "STREET RACING IN TWIN CITIES INCREASES" underneath it, there was a picture from a speed camera, showing two cars, a highly modified Nissan R32 Skyline, with smoke whipping off the back tires and a faint glow of light emanating from underneath the car, The other car was an also highly modified Mazda RX-7, right behind it. He chuckled at it. Jack personally knew the guys who owned both cars. The picture portrayed it as a race, but it was in fact a practice session for them. They were both excellent drifters, who had modified just about everything in their cars. Corvette LS3 engine was in the Mazda RX-7, and the Nissan R32 Skyline had a wrecked engine out of a Toyota Supra, and two new turbochargers.

The article itself was mostly about the mayor discouraging it, and what the city's Police forces where doing about it. The biggest addition to the base fleet being ECU tuning, newer superchargers, and some transmission tuning, to better accelerate around the city, since they didn't need to be tuned for 180 MPH. Basically nothing that would affect him.

Now that he thought of it, Jack remembered the race going on later tonight at one of the Iron Works, which was slang for an old mining facility on the island, and the key to the early success of the island. It was great after hours, with minimal police patrols. Not only that, but it was wide open, perfect for meets, which was great for races and drifts. Jack heard shuffling feet come down the hallway.

"Morning uncle."

A grunt followed as Jack's uncle, a retired captain of a cargo ship of about 60, who had made it big enough to retire in style during a very lucky night at the casino, shuffled in the door.

"You know what today is?"

"The day you finally go to college?"

Jack looked at him "I'm 17"

"Damnit, I knew it was too good to be true."

Jack tried his best to look offended "What would you do with me gone?"

His uncle snorted and opened the fridge "Start actually enjoying retirement, maybe?"

Jack rolled his eyes "We both know you would be bored"

His uncle snorted "Yeah sure"

Pushing himself off the counter, Jack grabbed his coat that hung off the back door of the garage door.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm just going to meet up with my friends!"

Grabbing the milk out of the fridge, he responded "Just making sure"

He closed the door behind him, and he grabbed his keys from a set of hooks with a set of various car keys. He turned around and observed the various cars parked there. The closest car was his aunt's car, a Red-with-black-rims Mercedes Black-Edition E63 Shooting Brake. The next car over was a new White Chevy Camaro Z/28, and one of the first ones to be modified by Hennessey. The car to the Camaro, was a Silver VW Golf GTI Mk1, with a small body-kit, which happened to be Jacks.

He had modified it with all sorts of bits and ends, with money coming in from both his funds, his friends, and unorganized street races.

The list contained all sort of performance parts: 2 Turbochargers rated at 28 PSI, a new in-line 6 engine, with a completely new drive-train, a 25:75 front:rear power differential, a lowered suspension, a new 5-speed transmission (manual of course), and a 'flat-floor'. It was hardly the same car, and most of the pieces had been converted from a modified 4th gen Golf, whose street-racing driver had gone off a cliff and rolled. The top of the car was completely smashed in, but the engine, transmission, and drivetrain had been fine enough. Though the drivetrain had required massive modifications to match the size and length needed.

The guy was very lucky to be alive, though, he never did race again.

Anyway, Jack grabbed the keys with the iconic VW logo on it, and right before he walked over, he pushed the button to open the garage door (with the opener that was right next to the door) and walked over and got in. The door closed behind him with a solid "Thunk".

The cabin was pretty much stock, excluding a racing wheel, the dash, and a roll-cage. If somebody peaked around the seats, they would find two bottles of N2O. A blue shifter was extending from the center bump, a running gag with his team.

On the passenger side of the dash, a cursive red "Zoey" was stitched, his girlfriend's name. They had stitched their names in each other cars about 2 months after going out. In her car, a blue Jack was stitched on her dash.

In between the seats, there was a small bump- the result of the transmission and lowering. Jack smiled grimly at the memory of the several days of hammering and welding to get the shape in to place.

Starting the car was Jack's favorite part, he compared it to a mother listening to her baby cry… ok scratch that- laugh. It was listening to the thing he created (almost from scratch). All the pain and misery- ok mothers did not go through NEARLY the same pain he did, Jack had broken multiple bones, countless cuts (deep ones that required stiches), nearly died from heat stroke, hypothermia from the scrape yard, frostbite, nearly cut his finger off… all over the time period of 2 years. But the result brought a smile to his face every time the car started… though Jack wouldn't say it was completely worth it. Yes, his creation made him proud, but for the money, he would've got a Scion FR-S or Subaru BRZ.

As he pulled out of the garage, the car rumbled apprehensively, almost as if it was alive.

As he neared the turn at the end of the street, (a 90* angle right). He let off the accelerator a little, and when it looked like there was no way he would make the turn, he turned to right so he was on the other side of the road, before snapping the wheel to the right, just long enough for the back tires to give out a little, then yanked the wheel to the left, to prevent the rear from going too far out as all hell broke loose as the back tires had forsaken any memory of what 'grip' was. The engine topped out as the wheels spun in the back, leaving a nice trail of whipping smoke, and a smell of burning rubber.

The drift swung a little too tight, so letting the wheel turn back to the right, the drift widened a little. Jack couldn't see it, but he knew the front end followed the curb perfectly.

Coming out of the drift on the wrong side of the road again, Jack straightened out, and worked his way across town towards the mountainous roads to the north of town.

This was Jacks favorite part. This was a bit of a "pre-flight check". If anything was wrong, Jack could tell. Tonight, the car itself felt amazing. It was relatively cool out, letting the engine run a little more power. Though, not enough for there to be a massive difference. The streets however were slick, it had rained the night before, proving that the car could still be as fun as a Ferrari.

It was only 6-7 o'clock on a Saturday, so the streets were pretty much empty. Which was good, as it allowed Jack to take full advantage of the roads and the car. While it wouldn't matter if there was cars, Jack preferred to drive without weaving, as he had seen the wrecks of racers who had screwed up, and they were nasty.

He drove down the street, and turned legally on to a main road, which stretched through the entire neighborhood. He found himself on the highway next. The highway was amazing. It was brand new, replacing the extremely old main roads that had been terrible excuses for highways. It was an expensive but excellent system, with 10 lanes overall, and it went with the land, instead of cutting through it. It was a bit like the Autobahn, just with a stupid speed limit. Albeit, the speed limit was 85 MPH. It stretched around the entire two islands, weaving and winding, so you could have some fun when you drove.

Though, that said, San Asmira was notorious for pricks. The worse one Jack had run into nearly ran him off the road… and Jack hadn't even known what he did. And the guy would've too, if it wasn't for a well-timed N2O shot. He of course took a video of the entire incident. And eventually got their license revoked (which was a little ironic, considering Jack was a Street Racer).

Though, the streets were in a grid pattern making life easy for navigation in the city, with sprawling winding "driver" Roads in the surrounding hills.

As he entered the city, he looked around nervously, as this was usually known as cop territory. But it was also the fastest way across the country. Jack wasn't in the mood to want to screw around with the police. It was only 8 in the morning after all.

He eventually came upon a defunct road, something that looked like it hadn't been cared for in years. It was off of the highway that surrounded the city, and didn't even have an exit. If it wasn't for the fresh tire tracks visible, it would've looked like a dirt road.

Either way, as Jack climbed the mountain road, which wound up one of the mountains, going back-and-forth, it was revealed it wasn't what it seemed. In several turns, new tires tracks revealed drifts. Jack, started drifting too, in the same spots. However, he had to be careful, because trees lined the sides, and there was no guardrail. Along the entire road, he saw absolutely no-other car.

About half-way up the road, which was 30 minute trip, he stopped a particularly wide turn, with a clearing in the trees. On the side of the road, stood an old car-shop. The signs where covered in graffiti, but Jack knew that they had used to read "Zephyr Automotive Repair" A business that had gone defunct. Pretty much for picking such remote places for it shops.

The car-shop would've looked completely deserted if it wasn't for the group of cars out front. This was the home of the race team 'Blue-Shift'.

In San Asmira, there were two types of racing; organized and unorganized. The Organized racing scene worked with racing teams, Jack was personally apart of the Blue-Shift. To keep it fair, and to keep the racing relatively fair, their where 3 tiers of cars and 3 types of races (with the teams spread across the tiers):

The top tier used hypercars, usually ones that were rear-wheel drive, and mid-engined. Though, there were quite a few front engine cars as well.

The middle tier used high-end sport cars like Corvettes, and Vipers. Along with performance models of Porsches, BMWs, Audis, and Mercedes. This made up a bulk of the organized racer scene.

The lowest tier, the one that most of the members of Blue-Shift were in, consisted of the 'normal' sport cars, Hot Hatches, tuned sedans, etc. This also formed the rest of the bulk of the organized racing, and the major vehicles for unorganized. This was the starting point for most racers.

Teams organized at meets, which had races prepared by a team beforehand. It was a fun crowd, as teams usually had alliances, and friendly rivalries. And it wasn't uncommon for people to have friends in other groups. It set them apart from gangs. Well, that, and the relatively low amount of smoking, drinking, and drugs that went on. (They all were smart enough to realize they eventually impacted speed)

The three types of races were Street, Drifting, and Drag. Drifting was a judged event, with single drivers, or sometimes synchronized teams drifting around corners, and was filmed, which was then related onto TVs and judged. Only 2 people on Blue-Shift were drifters. Street was the classic type of race, either sprints that would start at one end (usually at the meet), and ended at a different area, or Circuits which were opposite of sprints, in they usually followed the same pathway once or twice becoming "laps". The last type was drag, which was self-explanatory, but they only could take place at certain places on the island.

Unorganized races were the ones that usually brought teams and racers a lot of money. These races usually included Hotshots or lone wolfs, who didn't have a team. Usually it was a bet, or two cars would pull up to a stoplight at the same time and drag. Usually organized street-racers blew them away, but for whatever reason they always came back for more. The unorganized scene was the one that people would want to avoid. There was a lot of gang related activity, drugs, alcohol, and drugs going on for the usual, but for organized racers, it was fine.

The defunct-looking workshop was actually the base of Blue-Shift, which had about a dozen members. They had updated the lifts in the 3 garages, and installed new systems, such as new ventilation. The service/business section had been converted into a rec room; with snacks, gaming systems, a pool table, and other entertainment systems, used before and after the races.

Outside, about a dozen cars were parked around the workshop. He pulled in to the dirt lot, and parked next to an old black S2000, his girlfriend's car, and a dark blue 2nd-gen Subaru Impreza WRX.

Getting out, Jack was careful not to hit the Quattro, and walked up to the front of the Workshop. Opening the door, he was greeted by a rush of sleek soft fur, an excited tongue, and a lot of barking/whining.

Laughing Jack cried down, and the dog got down, jumping in circles in excitement. The 'little' fur ball was a Greyhound named Ayrton, as in Ayrton Senna, who was a 3 time F1 champion, who had died in a horrific 1994 crash.

Ayrton was Blue-Shifts 'mascot' if you will. Jack had found the Greyhound on the streets, and at first assumed Ayrton was lost, because he acted quiet docile around Jack, but when he checked the pound and the internet, he couldn't find any postings. So Ayrton had become his dog, but since his Aunt was allergic to dogs, he had convinced like the devil to let Angela let him keep Ayrton at the base.

Ayrton never went to meets because Jack was paranoid that something would happen to him if all of them raced. Every day before and after school, Jack would drive all the way up to the workshop and give Ayrton food and water, (and after school) play with him.

Crouching down, Jack stroked Ayrton around the ears, and let his eyes scan the room before him.

To the direct right of Jack sat a couple couches, with an absolutely massive 90" LED Flat screen TV, with an array of gaming consoles sat underneath. Surrounding the area sat several speakers, a surround sound system naturally. Next to the table on which the LED sat, sat an old 1960-style jukebox. It had a custom neon logo displaying "Games" over it. Something that the team's mechanic had whipped up for the team in his spare time, it held all the games for the gaming system.

Behind the entertainment area sat an entire mini-bar, pardon the alcohol. The floor there was raised about 2 feet higher than the entertainment area. Enough that you had to walk up two steps to get to it. Directly across from this area sat a pool table (also on the raised floor), which had a group of people standing around it.

Behind the pool table, even though Jack couldn't see it, he knew a couple arcade games sat there, including a racing simulator rig.

After Ayrton was done saying hello, Jack walked further into the rec room. A group of people stood at the pool table, hunched over something. There was a lot of muttering going on, with the occasional hand gesture.

Jack walked over, Ayrton right on his heels and stood behind Zoey, and wrapped his arms around her. Tonight she only wore a tight fitting Audi T-shirt, with skinny jeans.

Zoey was only a few months younger than him. She had dark brown-hair with green highlights, which highlighted her brilliant green eyes. They had met at a car show in Paradise Cove when they were 10 in 2008. Jack had been gawking at a 2002 Pagani Zonda S 7.3, and Zoey at a Koenigsegg CCXR that were parked next to each, and they nearly killed each other because, Jack had been wearing a Pagani shirt, and Zoey a Koenigsegg shirt… Which had led a long debate about which one was better.

They still bickered about it, even today.

Eventually, they had learned that they were going to the same middle school, and they had become good friends (a result of both of their love of cars). When the last dance of 8th grade came around, Jack finally got the guts to ask her out, and she laughed and said yes. From they're they had really hit it off.

When Jack finally got his Golf (two years before driving, so he could modify it) she had actually helped him quite a bit. And eventually, he helped raise money to buy her a car, the S2000, and helped her tune it.

On the pool table, a map of the islands was spread out over it. A red pen laid off to the side, and several scribbles where on the map, but they were all crossed off. Jack observed the map. San Asmira was located on an island about the size of Hawaiian Island, with large mountains on the north of the island, and a sprawling city metropolis in the center, with suburbia and mansions sat in the south. Next to San Asmira, sat Los LaReina. Los LaReina was smaller than San Asmira, similar to size of Honolulu. With only a 2 mile stretch of water in-between the islands called Seafire Straight, they were referred to as the Twin cities. On the map, a long lined connected the two islands, indicating Millennial Bridge, a modern wonder, with a 10 lane roadway/highway enclosed, within a huge suspension bridge. It was closed roof, because it had to be designed for the high-speed winds that sometimes ripped through the Seafire Straight. What was really neat, even if the bridge was twisting in high-winds, the actual road wouldn't move, as it was located with some advanced gyro system, keeping it even.

Every racer on both islands loved the bridge, just for the incredible sounds that would echo throughout the bridge. If you had ever heard a supercars engine in it, you would agree.

Similar to San Asmira, Los LaReina reflected San Asmira in architecture styles which was a modern clean look, and the economy which supported tourism and trade. The economy itself had first been iron ironically. The mountains on the north of San Asmira, called Etna Mountains, had been rich in iron. But, San Asmira's iron resources quickly dwindled, leaving a couple abandoned mines, and a huge port called Port Royal. Which had been revamped into a mega-hub for commercial shipping, and had replaced the iron economy. Overall, the two islands sat about 50 miles off the coast of California, a little south of San Diego.

Geographically, both islands were circular in shape. However, San Asmira had a small mountain range, called the Etna Mountains, surrounding the entire north end of the island, only stopping until it got to around half way The mountains themselves were of medium height, only large enough that they had snow on them year-round.

In San Asmira, there was 8 boroughs: Paradise Cove, Gullwing Beach, Edgewise, Brooksburg, Aiendale, Rosewood, Ravenhood, and Port Royal.

Paradise Cove was the center of wealth, such as company CEOs. It was on the southwest side of town, situated close to the beach, so the view itself was beautiful, and worth 1 million dollars alone. Most of the top tier racers originated from there.

Gullwing Beach was the escape of the island, up north at the end of the Etna Mountains, it was just flat beach, with coral reefs off the coast, and blue clear water. It was also nice because the Etna Mountains blocked any sight of the metropolis area, or other part of the island. So, it was like the west coast version of the Caribbean.

Ravenhood was the area Jack and most of his friends were from. Consisting entirely of Suburbia, it was situated on west side of the island. The roads there were a network of streets, and could be hard to navigate if you weren't familiar with the area. But most racers enjoyed the area, for its streets were filled with easy-to-drift turns, and after about 8 o'clock, the streets would be deserted.

On the opposite side of the island from Ravenhood, there was Rosewood. Similar in name, they shared the same type of suburbia type population. However, Rosewood was known to be huge on street race locations, mostly due to a lack of police patrols. However, the occasional night a massive squad of cops would be randomly in it, and those nights where known as Midnight Terrors. Because of the Midnight Terror, most non-organized racers would avoid Rosewood. Those who did go into Rosewood were usually doing so off a dare.

Edgewise was at the foothills on the north side of the Etna Mountains, it was pretty much a large fishing village, consisting of a high Asian population, with streets that could be a nightmare to navigate depending on the hour. But the racers from there weren't to be estimated. While they favored Japanese sport cars, they surprising weren't very good tuners, relying mostly on crate engines, and cookie-cutter out-of-the-box parts than actual tuning. Edgewise was known to be a hub for its black market, which was why the racers from there used such cookie cutter parts.

Brooksburg was an extremely tiny town area, located on near the peak of the Etna Mountains, it was a cute village, mostly a tourist destination. Because of its location, it snowed there year-round, making it a skiing destination. The roads there were crazy and could be very much dangerous in the winter, but in the summer they were some of the best "driving" roads on both islands. It was also a racing destination because it also provided a way to smoothly turn around for coming back down the mountain.

Aiendale was the largest borough. It actually encompassed the entirety of the downtown city and urban areas. It also had several boroughs, such as the Highline District, which was famous for its 2 dozen skyscrapers right next to each other, especially Olympic Building: the highest skyscraper on the west coast. But they didn't usually show up on a local map just because the boroughs were mostly used by the police and city transportation. It was located on the tip of the island, it was a little bit like Long Island, just smaller.

The highway surrounded the center of the island, touching one and every borough, and crossed the gap over the bridge.

As far as Los LaReina went, the name itself was a little bit of a screw up. It had originally been called LaReina, after the daughter of the Spanish conquer who had found the island. However, when Americans gained possession of the island, an idiot thinking of Los Vegas, and Los Angeles, who obviously didn't know Spanish reported it as Los LaReina. And since the Government back then didn't really know Spanish either, it had officially became that, and nobody had ever bothered to change it. The entire island was pretty much made up of an urban area, completely flat. It's sported even more skyscrapers, so much so, its individual nickname was City of Skyscrapers. It had become a mega-hub during the Iron boom for Iron Refineries, but when it crashed, the two cities had been able to revamp its economy into a more profitable trade hub.

Under certain circumstances, most would agree that Los LaReina had a better street-racing scene, but San Asmira was more diverse.

Anyway, the racers assembled were here to talk about one thing: the race route.

Before each meet, each team would draw a single race track, usually about 5-12 miles. The tracks would be submitted to the tech people, and they would program them into specially hacked GPS systems. Then, they were picked at random, and relayed to GPS units in the cars. It gave the team that designed it an advantage, but all teams would eventually get it. It wasn't a perfect system, then again, no system was.

As far as Jack could tell, so far, they hadn't gotten jack (no pun intended) accomplished.

Angela, Blue-Shifts leader spoke: "Ok, seriously guys, we need to figure out what we're going to do."

Tonight's meet was at on the north-west end called "Iron Works" for its large iron mining facilities. Iron Works was actually a slang term referring to all of the Iron industry sites present, though when racers used it, they usually referred to the Bradly & Whitney Iron Mining Co. Site, which had been the largest on the island. It had been the largest iron mining facility on the west coast, but it had hit hard times in the late 19th century, when the iron started running out, and it was now a defunct area, with a bunch of great turns for drifting, with a lack of cop patrols. San Asmira had been basically known for its raw iron, but its image was changing to a more tropical paradise type area.

Angela was 19, one of the oldest members, and had chestnut colored skin, with brilliant blue eyes. She emphasized them by streaking her long straight hair with blue. She was thin, and wore skinny jeans, and a grey hoodie.

Her family owned a body-shop, so she had grown up around cars. She even owned a 2001 BMW M3 (A result of some idiot never picking it up from the shop) with a M5 V10 engine in it. Though, she didn't race often. Only racing about once per meet, usually the planned one.

Right away, the boy standing next to her, Joey, spoke up "I'm telling you, we should use intercity roads to possibly lose them." Joey was Angela's boyfriend, and basically her second-in-command, if you could call him that. Joey, on the other hand, was of Native American decent, actually coming from the Vesturi Tribe, the natives who had lived on San Asmira Island before the Spanish had arrived. He was tall, and muscular, and had chestnut brown hair. He always wore close fitting t-shirts, and jeans.

His family had been a huge investor in the iron industry in San Asmira since it had started, buying about 15% of "Iron Works" in its first days for about $200, but when they first heard of Iron resources going out, they had pulled their investments out. Making about $5,000,000. They had reinvested it in the trade industry, creating the "Columbian Group", which had boomed since then. He had gotten a 2005 Mazda RX-7 for his 16th birthday, and had modified it with money he had won from low-end, unorganized races. While his family could've easily afford the newer one, Joey had wanted the RX-7 for its huge underground modifications.

"And, I'm telling you, Joey" Angela retorted "It's too risky. Even if most of our cars had modern-day safety standards WITH roll cages, a front-end collision is suicide!"

Joey grumbled something under his breath, and while Jack couldn't hear it, Angela apparently did, because she looked up, and slapped him across the face.

Everybody displayed some sort of sign of amusement, and Jack couldn't help but chuckle at the momentary look of shock that had flashed across Joey face.

After several other ideas, Jack spoke up. To give their cars the advantage, Jack said, we could finish after the strip of road they usually practiced on. It made some sense in Jack's head, as they all knew the road and apexes, and when to turn etc.

That was met with major resistance.

"Teams would know where we practiced, and where our base is!" Angela exclaimed.

Jack flushed. Just because there was alliances and such between teams, that didn't mean teams wouldn't try to sabotage each other's practice sessions and such. It wouldn't take much effort to notice the fact that they were drifting in the same spot as the skids. Or the lit-up

After a momentary pause, it was Emily, who was almost always quite during the planning stages, spoke up "To lose the low-chaps, we should have a dirt section."

Emily had freshly moved to America from Britain, in the pursuit of work for his dad and mother in the construction business, but when it went south in 2008, her father started a new shipping business, and with the high-demand of jobs after the crash in 2008, the business took off. **(NOTE: I'm sorry for that terrible British "Chap", but it's the only way to introduce her character)**

She owned a brand new F-Type R coupe, (A gift for her 16th Birthday). And damn, that thing was sweet. It had the R's Supercharged 5.0L V8, with a new racing Supercharger, but a new 6-speed stick manual. It was silver, with a retro styled racing livery on it that was heavily based off an old E-Type her grandfather had owned, and raced as a road-rally track car that was still in Britain in storage. It also had a little fender enhancement, with a couple exterior racing modifications. Jack really liked it. It was also the most expensive car out of the group.

Nate, the one who owned the Impreza, spoke up next "We could use that trail that leads up the mountain that passes our practice spot, it has a couple bumps that even jars my Impreza" Nate enjoyed rallying over racing. He lived in Brooksburg, so he learned quickly how to rally in winter conditions. And it was soon discovered he had a knack for it.

"Not to mention that our weaker cars are AWD, even though some of them are heavily biased to the back, we'll certainly maintain an advantage over the rear-wheel cars, especially in that one windy part that follows the river." Zoey continued off of him.

They agreed to that plan. Since a lot of the other teams cars had been lowered, a bumpy off-road part would be a nightmare. And while most of their team had lowered cars, they were familiar enough with the route that they knew where the bumps were. And like Zoey said, a lot of the rear-wheel cars would wind up spinning out, and even though Emily, Angela, and a couple others used rear-wheel drive cars, they would be fine as long as they were careful. Besides, they were extremely skilled drivers.

Angela spoke again "We should still have a drifting section."

By that she meant a section that would be faster to drift around turns. A drifting section would also leave behind a lot of front-wheel drive cars, and the AWD cars that had a more even power bias between the front and rear tires. However, it was difficult to come up with a proper place that WASN'T the road their base was on.

"What about that strip I was drifting in the newspaper?" answered Ryan, who had owned the R32 in that article. The Mazda had obviously been Joey. They were the two drifters of the group. They didn't race, they would drift down a section of road one at a time, (or sometimes as a team), and get judged on their technique, angle of drift, speed, and style. The articles picture displayed it as if it was a race, but it was them practicing their coordination for a drifting event.

"That would be perfect, except for the fact we don't have a fast way to get over there." Even though Ryan and Joey wouldn't race, the entire group knew how to drift rather well, Ryan and Joey just knew how to finesse it, and ride the drift to the absolute edge of not spinning out.

That stumped them even further. That road was definitely the closest option, but the issue was, is the only way to get over there is to take a 20-mile road up the mountain, weaving and winding, all around the mountain. It would get them there, though it passed through Brooksburg, which had a roundabout that would be great for turning back around and coming back. Though, coming back down the mountain, there was a cop outpost, while in Brooksburg there was only a small patrol, but they were usually the first to get new equipment, and the revvs of the engines usually echoed off the walls of surrounding mountains, so the cops would definitely hear them.

Particularly at the roundabout.

After sitting in silence for a few minutes, it was Jack that spoke up next. "What about the abandoned Railroad? It has that tunnel, but with our relatively narrow cars," motioning toward Angela "Pardon your BMW, but I think you should be fine, as long as you don't try to do high-angle drifts."

The railroad he was talking about was an old mine-cart track for the miners to ferry iron to the port for it to be shipped to Los LaReina. It had a mile long tunnel, about 10 feet wide which could be treacherous, but that would rule out a lot of wider cars, because the tunnel would down the mountain, with some rather tight turns, anything over 60 mph in a car such as Angela's BMW M3, with its wide body-kit, would be possible suicide. Though it really helped the smaller cars, such as his VW, to gain the advantage.

However, the most dangerous part of the tunnel was the rails, which could be a disastrous to suspensions, and possibly end their entire cars if they hit them hard enough. But years of no use left them covered in dirt, so they hardly protruded, but in parts they could still wreck the suspension.

After a brief pause, they agreed, and finished up the last part of the race: a 4 mile long windy road at the end of a short dirt road that led from the end of the tunnel. Which would lead back towards the meet.

Joey quickly grabbed the map and a pen, and started to sketch and outlines the route in pen.

After that, Angela adjourned them to go and do as they please, as they still had 5 hours until the meet.

About half-of the guys dove for the snacks, and the girls dove for the couches and gaming systems. However, both Jack looked at Zoey, and she nodded, and they both walked out into the garage, Ayrton right behind Jack.

There were a couple other people who were also in the group. There was Makayla Jackson, who was the daughter of an Asian fisherman (who had made a lot of money in his free time fixing cars), she owned a new Subaru BRZ S, which she had turbocharged, and tuned with gold rims, and new Impreza wing on the back. It was obvious that her in Nate where dating. There was also Matthew Taylor, who owned a 1971 Porsche 911 Carrera RS. He had spent all of his money from the time he bought it when he was 12, until now restoring it and upgrading it. And the current car had a new Turbocharged 3.8L Water-Cooled GT2 Flat-6 engine. But it looked completely original from the outside. It was awesome.

The only other person in the shop was Mike (and in extension his Bulldog named Carroll Shelby). Who was underneath his Custom hotrod matte black Z/28, probably tuning something or other. Mike never raced his beauty on the streets (though occasionally an unorganized street race), which was damn shame, as it was powered by a 950 HP NASCAR engine that he had gotten custom tuned from Hennessey (as a one-off).

Mike was the mechanic of the team, and an excellent one at that. Mike actually originated from Texas, before moving to Japan, learning how to tune street cars, then moved back to San Asmira. He was probably one of, if not the best of the tuners in the entire street racing underground. Mike was the oldest members of the team at 24, though nobody gave him grief since he was tuning there cars.

During the day he owned a body shop in inner-city, but in his free-time he would modify their cars. They hadn't used his shop for two reasons 1) having their cars on the lift would take away time for customer cars 2) if they got busted he would be screwed, and 3) It was inner-city, making it easy for other racers & cops to spot.

Walking in he greeted Mike, and with after startling him, causing him to hit his head on the bottom of the car. After cleaning him up, and getting a good cussing, Jack and Zoey started on the car.

Ayrton, who had come in with Jack, had ran over to the corner where Shelby laid, pestering Shelby, before jumping back as Shelby jumped at him. Jack snickered a little, and so did Mike. Though, Ayrton then proceeded slower, and just laid on the separate cushion.

In the garage 1 of the 3 lifts where empty. The Camaro occupying one of them. However, on the third lift, though not raised, was an old Corvette C3. The paint was a faded silver, it was shocking the low amount of rust it had acquired.

The car had been an old barn find that had been in a shed in the middle of the woods about 500 feet behind the shop, sitting inside underneath a load of junk. It had originally sat outside for half-a-decade until about 3 weeks ago when Jack had the idea to make it into a custom classic. He had asked Zoey if she wanted to help, and she accepted.

It had then become Jack's and Zoey's personal couple project. "Their first child" as the other members have joked. A project that they hoped would leave them with a rat rod, suited for carrying supplies and tools to meets. Another reason Jack and Zoey wanted to build this, they hoped to arrive together in a more ordinate style. They also wanted to test their relationship.

Though, as of now, nothing had been done on it. It had been sitting on the lift for 2 weeks. During that time, Jack and Zoey had been getting together a parts list, and then saving up for and ordering the parts for it, (which was easy, with the stream of money coming from racing).

Now they were ready to start the full-scale operation that his would be.

Without a word, Jack walked over and pulled the blow torch out and over to the area, before Zoey lug the toolbox over as well.

The plan was to start dismantling it. And since it had been sitting for god knows how long, they were expecting absolutely everything to be seized and not work. Which was great, since the only thing the two wanted were the panels, the frame, and some other small parts.

Before anything, Jack lifted the Vette just a little, so that they could directly take off the tires. However, they soon learned that they would have to fight this car for everything, as they blow torched the 20-some rusted bolts out of the rims. Zoey had gone around with an air-compressed gun, the type they had used to use in NASCAR, and F1. And marked all the ones that she couldn't get… which turned out to be about 75% of them. That job alone took them 30 minutes, because the rims just refused to budge.

After they had gotten the rims off, they rolled them outside, it wasn't as easy as they thought. Since they were flat. They couldn't really roll them, since they were also made from a heavy steel. They kept falling over, driving them crazy. Though, when they did finally roll them outside, they just left them, since they would probably reuse them again (as a joke).

Jack then grabbed the other blow-torch for Zoey, and the two of them set about torching all the under-workings i.e. the Exhaust, transmission, engine, etc. off. The exhaust fell off easily, along with the rest of the engine once they got the bolts off. Apparently it had sat for such a long time, that jack had to take an old metal bar and whack the engine (and in extension) the transmission out. Since it was a front-engine, rear-wheel drive car, it was a bit spread out, making everything a little painful.

The entire assembly fell to the floor with a bang. The engine only put out 238 HP, which would not do. Instead, they had plans to use a new LS9 engine.

Going back to the Vette, they removed the rest of the drivetrain, which was pretty easy since all they had to do was, and separated the panels away from the frame, since there was no way they would be able to work with them as a whole.

Most of the hardware would be unusable, but that didn't bother them concerning the new upgrades they had planned. The parts that were mostly unusable were the Steering system, and every single hardware piece.

They removed the panels, moved them to the bench were they started sanding them down with a heavy-grit sand paper. This was the painful part. Einstein once said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result". And it applied here. It was a grueling process, accomplishing nothing in a short period. Instead stretching for hours and hours on end. Though, the Nissan wasn't that bad, all they had to sand was some surface rust and sand the old paint off.

The entire plan was to restore the exterior of the Vette to near factory standard just in the color of the C6 ZR1 (while the C7 was out, the color was awesome), with a body kit and some stickers (basically no Fast & Furious type decals). Then, drop a LS9 engine into it, plus dual high-boost turbos, a new suspension, new drivetrain, 2 bottles of Nitrous, drop the ride height, update the interior, and replace the seats with racing bucket seats, a roll cage, and replace the transmission with a 5-speed transmission.

Jack was a little bit of a purist. He believed that one manufactures engine belonged in that car. A Chevy engine did not belong in a non-Chevy chassis (pardon Cadillac). That was why his GTI had a newer GTI engine. While other more powerful engines existed, and could fit, he didn't think those engines belonged. Even if he wasn't, buying the R32 made sense since it had been a complete package with the drivetrain, engine, transmission, and some modifications all together, and he knew they would all likely fit. Albeit, that last part turned out to be a lie, as just about everything had to be modified for the smaller Mk. I.

Once off, the only thing was the chassis, which was a metal mess of rust. Though it also was the springboard or first step of the project. And it was bare. Kind of like the canvas before the artist goes to town on it.

However, just as they were about to unbox the first part (a new aluminum panel to weld into place of the rust), Angela came out and told them that it was time to go. She had a certain glint of amusement in her face when they saw the dirty state of their clothing.

From there, they all walked out into the wreck room, where everybody was just getting their coats on. They walked out together, and Jack got into an argument with Nathan over the advantages of ride height. Jack though a low-ride height was good because 1) it looked better 2) it didn't let as much under the car, preventing lift and finally, 3) it prevented drag from all the underside pieces. Though, Nate wouldn't listen, mostly because he was stubborn, and biased because he favored rallying.

Though the conversation came to an end as they actually went to get in there cars.

Jack was one of the last of the people to start their engines, and the noise that all the engines made was that of a beautiful chorus of all their individual hard work to tune those cars to sound like they did. From the roar of the V10 out of Angela's BMW, to the low growl emitting from modified exhausts out of the two Subaru engines out of Makayla's BRZ and Nate's WRX STI, and the British scream of a V8 ready to pounce that was Emily's Jaguar. Then Jack turned on his car, and the hearty rumble of the ever familiar in-line six, and the faint whirl of the turbos.

One at a time they pulled out. Angela first, then Joey, Nate, Makayla, Emily, Matthew, who was in such a rush, wound up spinning out, much to the amusement of the rest of the group, then Zoey, and last of all Jack, because his car was the only car large enough to carry the pop-up and chairs for their spot at the event.

From there, the entire team drove the speed limit, showing off their cars, and revving there engines in the presence of other racers. Most of which were in similar size (racer wise) to them. As they coasted throughout the city, Jack saw some things that troubled him.

The wealthiest group in the city known as the Alpha Dogs. They were famous for their high-end rare super cars. The cars they used were usually rare (though 99% of the time, they were illegal copies) and tonight they had shiny new Ferrari LaFerraris for their top tier racers, box new Lamborghini Hurcans for the middle, and (what troubled him most of all), was a half-dozen of Alfa Romeo 4Cs which would be racing with him, all in the Alpha Dog's iconic Matte White with Red paint jobs.

The Alpha Dogs were also known as the Widowers, as they were also the most violent team, and had actually 'widowed' a number of girlfriends and fiancés. The VW Gold R32 that Jack had used for the underworking of his car had been a result of a guy pissing a widower off. Actually, the Alpha Dogs didn't have any allies, mostly running off of money from drugs, and other illegal activities that most other teams didn't partake in.

Other than that, nothing else stood out. Several times they had seen a cop, but none of them got flashed or pulled over (Luckily). Though, when they neared the Middle of city, which had a single round-a-bout called the 'Heart of the City', a 2001 V10 Viper ARC had raced up the side followed by cops, but when he reached the roundabout and went to turn, a large moving truck slammed into, sending the Viper spinning to the side. When they passed it, the entire rear of the viper was demolished, and the driver was off to the side, sitting on the curb, his head in his hands. Even from where Jack had been, he could hear the groan of metal and smashing noise, when the roar of the V10 had been silenced.

Arriving at the Bradley and Whitney Site at about 5:30, they made their way over to the northwest most area of the parking lot area. The electro music was blaring. It was so loud, they had first heard it from ½ mile away. Once they arrived at seen of beauty sprawled in-front of them. The 'parking lot' was about the size of a 4 football fields, with old iron mining equipment lieing around, most rusted and ancient, but an interesting back drop. It was packed with cars of every single make and model. Jack's favorite car was a Pagani Huayra owned by a guy named Felix, who had custom modified to a "Zonda R" type status. Zoey's favorite car was a brand new Koenigsegg One:1, that had the same paint layout as a Koenigsegg Agera R. The biggest strain on their relationships was the fact that Jack liked Pagani, and Zoey liked Koenigsegg

Overall the meet size attracted about 1500 cars (though only about half actually wound up racing per night), with races averaging about 20 people. Some people came all the way from the east coast to participate in some events. Overall, it was the largest underground street racing ring in the world.

The cops were dangerous, but they were easy to fool. Even if they knew where the meet was taking place, they couldn't crackdown on the meet, because there was no proof that they had all raced. Hell, only half of them did race! Though, if they did discover the meet, they would patrol the surrounding areas and calling in "The wolves". So as soon as a race started, they would be right on them, ripping the race apart. Though, they were easily fooled via Social Media. They thought the meet was on the other side of town, at the port.

The cop cars ranged from old Crown Victorias supped up by racers who had been caught, and were willing to help to get a bit off their sentencing. The higher end cops used Dodge Challengers SRT, also tuned by racers. Though, there was an elite unit of cops. Only 24, they used a choice of confiscated racer cars. That group was nicknamed "The Wolves", because they hunted in packs of 3-4, patrolling 2 miles from each other so they quickly get to each other.

This was what they all lived for. The rush, the trill and excitement of racing and winning. Sure, street racing could be looked at as illegal, and a contact sport. But, even the cops got a thrill out of chasing racers. It was the trill of driving fast. Adrenaline, plus the hearty growl of any engine was enough to send most racers and cops alike going a little fan-girly on the inside.

As Jack entered the parking lot, following Zoey, he nearly clipped a satin Red Ferrari 430 Scuderia. The guy was heading to the start point, which was one end of a quarter mile strip through the middle of the cars, after which they would hit the streets. The guy was too focused to notice, and Jack didn't have time to honk his horn. Which was okay, because it was very much possible a fight would've broken out.

Continuing behind Zoey, they wound through the dirt pathways that crisscrossed and outlined teams parking areas. In most of the currently occupied areas, teams had bought old rusted out 50 gallon barrels for a central fire that stood in the center of the plot that people would usually surround with their foldable chairs. Usually, teams also brought a foldable table as a platform for discussions and refreshments, with a pop-up overhead tent.

Jack had learned to bring about 3 flashlights, and 2 lanterns. Usually because Jack would misplace about 2 of the flashlights amongst his possessions, whether it be chucking it into the back of the car when it was his turn to race, or leaving it at the table.

The two lanterns were excellent for last minute tunes. Such as checking bolts on new parts, or whichever. He used them so much, he had actually installed hook on the bottom/inside of the hood to hold them.

Blue-Shifts parking area was all the way in the back right of the meet, on the corner of it all. When Jack finally pulled in, about half of the team was waiting expectantly for him, since he was carrying there associated chairs. Popping the trunk, by the time he had gotten out, grabbed Zoey's and his individual chairs, and shut the trunk; everybody had pretty much set up.

Handing Zoey her chair, Jack quickly unfolded the chair. He then walked back to the car to grab some wood for fire. It wasn't extremely cold, as it was the beginning of spring, and temperatures usually averaged around 60* in San Asmira. It was quite tropical.

But, the fires were an excellent source of light, serving not only as light for conversation, but they also served as Street Lamps, and a navigation tool, so teams knew were there individual area actually was. They usually burned for 3-5 hours, which was about how long meets lasted.

Sitting by the fire next to Zoey, just talking was one of Jacks favorite part. Sometimes he hated to go racing, because he was having such an interesting conversation. Ranging in topic from sports, news, politics, school, and cars. Usually cars though.

They sat there for 30 minutes. Listening to chatter from the police, and chatted about cars. Turbocharged vs Supercharged was tonight's topic. Jack was a firm believer in Turbocharged because cars didn't lose any power to it, while Supercharged were more effective, part of the power cancelled out, something that did bode well with Jack.

When 6:15 rolled around, Angela came up to them. "Guys, it's our race is coming up, if you want to race in it, I recommend you get your stuff together."

Most of the others got up, Zoey and Jack included. Joey and Matt were sitting it out obviously. So was Angela surprisingly. Then again, if she wreaked her BMW, she would be screwed. Her parents knew she raced, so if she wrecked, she would never be able to race again. Emily was racing though, though her parents only had a suspicion that she did race.

As Jack got in the car, he pulled his helmet out of the back seat. Racers used helmets to protect their identity from speed cameras, cops, sore losing racers, and pedestrians. It was also helpful in case of a crash. Though, you could tell a lot from a helmet. Jacks for example; was flat black, with carbon fiber trim and a chrome visor. On the sides, several bomb pin-ups were there, marking the number of victories Jack had. A total of 15. On the other hand, Zoey had a complete flat hot pink helmet, with a smoke visor, the same type of helmet the Stig used from Top Gear. While Zoey's real favorite color was Navy blue, nothing would wound a man's pride more than to be passed by a girl, in a hot pink helmet. In an Honda S2000.

As he pulled it over his head, he closed his eyes. Finally tying the strap, he opened his eyes, to see a slightly tinted version of the world he had just seen 15 seconds ago. All the sounds before were now muffled. He pulled some racing gloves out of the glove box, and put them on slowly. Thinking all the way. He finally pulled the glove down, and rested a hand on the ignition, turning it.

A roar erupted from the space in-front of him. That of an in-line 6. Then he heard a slight wine as the turbo-chargers spooled up. He pushed on the brake. Releasing the parking gear, it rolled back a little. Jack hit the clutch and shifted it into reverse. The engine pitch increased slightly.

He caressed the gear knob, trying to call his racing mind. Adrenaline through his veins, coursing through him. He loved the adrenaline rush, but it could make him over-drive the car. Which could wind up making him lose.

He turned around, releasing the brake and slowly backed out. Once he back out to the dirt road, he switched to first, and gave the throttle a quick jab, hearing a responding roar.

He followed Zoey, who was behind Makayla. Emily leading the caravan, Matthew in-between the two.

They reached the start of the ¼ mile, and lined up horizontally. Before Jack stretched a long dirt path, the sides packed with racers and lights. Though, the other cars bothered him. The Alpha Dogs were in about 3 Alfa Romeo 4Cs like earlier, but there was also absolutely gorgeous matt white and black rims Alfa Romeo 8C Disco Volante, something that should be in the 2nd tier, if not the 3rd tier. Jack couldn't focus on it though, as the starting girls walked over, a hankies and/or towels in hand. Something that also should've been disturbed him even more, was the fact he hadn't seen it earlier when they had come to the meet.

Some other competition was in he saw a lowered 3rd gen Civic hatchback with a modified air-cooler that had pipes right in front of the hood, a first-gen Subaru Impreza that caught his eye with pathetic spinner wheels (Jack had always thought they were stupid), a yellow Ford Focus ST, a Flat Grey 5th gen VW Golf GTi, and a Nissan 360Z that looked like something out of Fast & Furious.

Jacks hand drifted toward the shifter, his foot pushing the brake, and the other foot jabbing the throttle revving it slowly. He looked to the right and saw the 8C, and on the left he saw Zoey, focused intently on the flags.

Jack kept the girl in his peripheral vision, something he had learned from reading online. You could lose precious milliseconds switching your eyes back to the road. He saw the girl raise her arms, and the noise level of the engines increased dramatically.

Then, the girl lowered her arms, the towel falling. Though, from Jacks perspective, the arms moved slowly. His feet released the brake, moving over to the clutch as he did. Even though he didn't think to do it, He also floored the accelerator, full throttle. Pedal to the metal racing.

And so the race had begun.

DATE: April 5th, 2015

Jack woke with a start. Beams of Light streamed through the gaps of the white shades covering the windows. He yawned and stretched a little, welcoming the dull ache of yesterday's activities and sleep. 'Thank god its Saturday' Pausing for a moment, Jack thought 'TGIS' He smiled at his completely original thought. He looked at the digital clock sat at his bed-side table: It read 8:30. Jack was an early riser since he wanted to take advantage of the full day.

Jack sat up and sighed at the prospect of actually getting out of his nice cozy bed… Except, he was now bored, and the boredom was getting the best of him. He sighed with aspiration, before jumping out of bed, grabbing some dark jeans and a t-shirt with a Volkswagen logo right in the center of it, and quickly putting them on, freezing the entire time… Ug now he missed his bed...

He walked downstairs, trying to be relatively quiet. He walked down the hallway, seeing the sun crest over the roof of the house behind them. After shaking himself out of a temporary trance at the sunrise. He turned into the kitchen, grabbed the paper off the table, and sat on the gradient counter, picking an apple out of a bowl in the corner of the counter.

The headline on the newspaper read "STREET RACING IN TWIN CITIES INCREASES" underneath it, there was a picture from a speed camera, showing two cars, a highly modified Nissan R32 Skyline, with smoke whipping off the back tires and a faint glow of light emanating from underneath the car, The other car was an also highly modified Mazda RX-7, right behind it. He chuckled at it. Jack personally knew the guys who owned both cars. The picture portrayed it as a race, but it was in fact a practice session for them. They were both excellent drifters, who had modified just about everything in their cars. Corvette LS3 engine was in the Mazda RX-7, and the Nissan R32 Skyline had a wrecked engine out of a Toyota Supra, and two new turbochargers.

The article itself was mostly about the mayor discouraging it, and what the city's Police forces where doing about it. The biggest addition to the base fleet being ECU tuning, newer superchargers, and some transmission tuning, to better accelerate around the city, since they didn't need to be tuned for 180 MPH. Basically nothing that would affect him.

Now that he thought of it, Jack remembered the race going on later tonight at one of the Iron Works, which was slang for an old mining facility on the island, and the key to the early success of the island. It was great after hours, with minimal police patrols. Not only that, but it was wide open, perfect for meets, which was great for races and drifts. Jack heard shuffling feet come down the hallway.

"Morning uncle."

A grunt followed as Jack's uncle, a retired captain of a cargo ship of about 60, who had made it big enough to retire in style during a very lucky night at the casino, shuffled in the door.

"You know what today is?"

"The day you finally go to college?"

Jack looked at him "I'm 17"

"Damnit, I knew it was too good to be true."

Jack tried his best to look offended "What would you do with me gone?"

His uncle snorted and opened the fridge "Start actually enjoying retirement, maybe?"

Jack rolled his eyes "We both know you would be bored"

His uncle snorted "Yeah sure"

Pushing himself off the counter, Jack grabbed his coat that hung off the back door of the garage door.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm just going to meet up with my friends!"

Grabbing the milk out of the fridge, he responded "Just making sure"

He closed the door behind him, and he grabbed his keys from a set of hooks with a set of various car keys. He turned around and observed the various cars parked there. The closest car was his aunt's car, a Red-with-black-rims Mercedes Black-Edition E63 Shooting Brake. The next car over was a new White Chevy Camaro Z/28, and one of the first ones to be modified by Hennessey. The car to the Camaro, was a Silver VW Golf GTI Mk1, with a small body-kit, which happened to be Jacks.

He had modified it with all sorts of bits and ends, with money coming in from both his funds, his friends, and unorganized street races.

The list contained all sort of performance parts: 2 Turbochargers rated at 28 PSI, a new in-line 6 engine, with a completely new drive-train, a 25:75 front:rear power differential, a lowered suspension, a new 5-speed transmission (manual of course), and a 'flat-floor'. It was hardly the same car, and most of the pieces had been converted from a modified 4th gen Golf, whose street-racing driver had gone off a cliff and rolled. The top of the car was completely smashed in, but the engine, transmission, and drivetrain had been fine enough. Though the drivetrain had required massive modifications to match the size and length needed.

The guy was very lucky to be alive, though, he never did race again.

Anyway, Jack grabbed the keys with the iconic VW logo on it, and right before he walked over, he pushed the button to open the garage door (with the opener that was right next to the door) and walked over and got in. The door closed behind him with a solid "Thunk".

The cabin was pretty much stock, excluding a racing wheel, the dash, and a roll-cage. If somebody peaked around the seats, they would find two bottles of N2O. A blue shifter was extending from the center bump, a running gag with his team.

On the passenger side of the dash, a cursive red "Zoey" was stitched, his girlfriend's name. They had stitched their names in each other cars about 2 months after going out. In her car, a blue Jack was stitched on her dash.

In between the seats, there was a small bump- the result of the transmission and lowering. Jack smiled grimly at the memory of the several days of hammering and welding to get the shape in to place.

Starting the car was Jack's favorite part, he compared it to a mother listening to her baby cry… ok scratch that- laugh. It was listening to the thing he created (almost from scratch). All the pain and misery- ok mothers did not go through NEARLY the same pain he did, Jack had broken multiple bones, countless cuts (deep ones that required stiches), nearly died from heat stroke, hypothermia from the scrape yard, frostbite, nearly cut his finger off… all over the time period of 2 years. But the result brought a smile to his face every time the car started… though Jack wouldn't say it was completely worth it. Yes, his creation made him proud, but for the money, he would've got a Scion FR-S or Subaru BRZ.

As he pulled out of the garage, the car rumbled apprehensively, almost as if it was alive.

As he neared the turn at the end of the street, (a 90* angle right). He let off the accelerator a little, and when it looked like there was no way he would make the turn, he turned to right so he was on the other side of the road, before snapping the wheel to the right, just long enough for the back tires to give out a little, then yanked the wheel to the left, to prevent the rear from going too far out as all hell broke loose as the back tires had forsaken any memory of what 'grip' was. The engine topped out as the wheels spun in the back, leaving a nice trail of whipping smoke, and a smell of burning rubber.

The drift swung a little too tight, so letting the wheel turn back to the right, the drift widened a little. Jack couldn't see it, but he knew the front end followed the curb perfectly.

Coming out of the drift on the wrong side of the road again, Jack straightened out, and worked his way across town towards the mountainous roads to the north of town.

This was Jacks favorite part. This was a bit of a "pre-flight check". If anything was wrong, Jack could tell. Tonight, the car itself felt amazing. It was relatively cool out, letting the engine run a little more power. Though, not enough for there to be a massive difference. The streets however were slick, it had rained the night before, proving that the car could still be as fun as a Ferrari.

It was only 6-7 o'clock on a Saturday, so the streets were pretty much empty. Which was good, as it allowed Jack to take full advantage of the roads and the car. While it wouldn't matter if there was cars, Jack preferred to drive without weaving, as he had seen the wrecks of racers who had screwed up, and they were nasty.

He drove down the street, and turned legally on to a main road, which stretched through the entire neighborhood. He found himself on the highway next. The highway was amazing. It was brand new, replacing the extremely old main roads that had been terrible excuses for highways. It was an expensive but excellent system, with 10 lanes overall, and it went with the land, instead of cutting through it. It was a bit like the Autobahn, just with a stupid speed limit. Albeit, the speed limit was 85 MPH. It stretched around the entire two islands, weaving and winding, so you could have some fun when you drove.

Though, that said, San Asmira was notorious for pricks. The worse one Jack had run into nearly ran him off the road… and Jack hadn't even known what he did. And the guy would've too, if it wasn't for a well-timed N2O shot. He of course took a video of the entire incident. And eventually got their license revoked (which was a little ironic, considering Jack was a Street Racer).

Though, the streets were in a grid pattern making life easy for navigation in the city, with sprawling winding "driver" Roads in the surrounding hills.

As he entered the city, he looked around nervously, as this was usually known as cop territory. But it was also the fastest way across the country. Jack wasn't in the mood to want to screw around with the police. It was only 8 in the morning after all.

He eventually came upon a defunct road, something that looked like it hadn't been cared for in years. It was off of the highway that surrounded the city, and didn't even have an exit. If it wasn't for the fresh tire tracks visible, it would've looked like a dirt road.

Either way, as Jack climbed the mountain road, which wound up one of the mountains, going back-and-forth, it was revealed it wasn't what it seemed. In several turns, new tires tracks revealed drifts. Jack, started drifting too, in the same spots. However, he had to be careful, because trees lined the sides, and there was no guardrail. Along the entire road, he saw absolutely no-other car.

About half-way up the road, which was 30 minute trip, he stopped a particularly wide turn, with a clearing in the trees. On the side of the road, stood an old car-shop. The signs where covered in graffiti, but Jack knew that they had used to read "Zephyr Automotive Repair" A business that had gone defunct. Pretty much for picking such remote places for it shops.

The car-shop would've looked completely deserted if it wasn't for the group of cars out front. This was the home of the race team 'Blue-Shift'.

In San Asmira, there were two types of racing; organized and unorganized. The Organized racing scene worked with racing teams, Jack was personally apart of the Blue-Shift. To keep it fair, and to keep the racing relatively fair, their where 3 tiers of cars and 3 types of races (with the teams spread across the tiers):

The top tier used hypercars, usually ones that were rear-wheel drive, and mid-engined. Though, there were quite a few front engine cars as well.

The middle tier used high-end sport cars like Corvettes, and Vipers. Along with performance models of Porsches, BMWs, Audis, and Mercedes. This made up a bulk of the organized racer scene.

The lowest tier, the one that most of the members of Blue-Shift were in, consisted of the 'normal' sport cars, Hot Hatches, tuned sedans, etc. This also formed the rest of the bulk of the organized racing, and the major vehicles for unorganized. This was the starting point for most racers.

Teams organized at meets, which had races prepared by a team beforehand. It was a fun crowd, as teams usually had alliances, and friendly rivalries. And it wasn't uncommon for people to have friends in other groups. It set them apart from gangs. Well, that, and the relatively low amount of smoking, drinking, and drugs that went on. (They all were smart enough to realize they eventually impacted speed)

The three types of races were Street, Drifting, and Drag. Drifting was a judged event, with single drivers, or sometimes synchronized teams drifting around corners, and was filmed, which was then related onto TVs and judged. Only 2 people on Blue-Shift were drifters. Street was the classic type of race, either sprints that would start at one end (usually at the meet), and ended at a different area, or Circuits which were opposite of sprints, in they usually followed the same pathway once or twice becoming "laps". The last type was drag, which was self-explanatory, but they only could take place at certain places on the island.

Unorganized races were the ones that usually brought teams and racers a lot of money. These races usually included Hotshots or lone wolfs, who didn't have a team. Usually it was a bet, or two cars would pull up to a stoplight at the same time and drag. Usually organized street-racers blew them away, but for whatever reason they always came back for more. The unorganized scene was the one that people would want to avoid. There was a lot of gang related activity, drugs, alcohol, and drugs going on for the usual, but for organized racers, it was fine.

The defunct-looking workshop was actually the base of Blue-Shift, which had about a dozen members. They had updated the lifts in the 3 garages, and installed new systems, such as new ventilation. The service/business section had been converted into a rec room; with snacks, gaming systems, a pool table, and other entertainment systems, used before and after the races.

Outside, about a dozen cars were parked around the workshop. He pulled in to the dirt lot, and parked next to an old black S2000, his girlfriend's car, and a dark blue 2nd-gen Subaru Impreza WRX.

Getting out, Jack was careful not to hit the Quattro, and walked up to the front of the Workshop. Opening the door, he was greeted by a rush of sleek soft fur, an excited tongue, and a lot of barking/whining.

Laughing Jack cried down, and the dog got down, jumping in circles in excitement. The 'little' fur ball was a Greyhound named Ayrton, as in Ayrton Senna, who was a 3 time F1 champion, who had died in a horrific 1994 crash.

Ayrton was Blue-Shifts 'mascot' if you will. Jack had found the Greyhound on the streets, and at first assumed Ayrton was lost, because he acted quiet docile around Jack, but when he checked the pound and the internet, he couldn't find any postings. So Ayrton had become his dog, but since his Aunt was allergic to dogs, he had convinced like the devil to let Angela let him keep Ayrton at the base.

Ayrton never went to meets because Jack was paranoid that something would happen to him if all of them raced. Every day before and after school, Jack would drive all the way up to the workshop and give Ayrton food and water, (and after school) play with him.

Crouching down, Jack stroked Ayrton around the ears, and let his eyes scan the room before him.

To the direct right of Jack sat a couple couches, with an absolutely massive 90" LED Flat screen TV, with an array of gaming consoles sat underneath. Surrounding the area sat several speakers, a surround sound system naturally. Next to the table on which the LED sat, sat an old 1960-style jukebox. It had a custom neon logo displaying "Games" over it. Something that the team's mechanic had whipped up for the team in his spare time, it held all the games for the gaming system.

Behind the entertainment area sat an entire mini-bar, pardon the alcohol. The floor there was raised about 2 feet higher than the entertainment area. Enough that you had to walk up two steps to get to it. Directly across from this area sat a pool table (also on the raised floor), which had a group of people standing around it.

Behind the pool table, even though Jack couldn't see it, he knew a couple arcade games sat there, including a racing simulator rig.

After Ayrton was done saying hello, Jack walked further into the rec room. A group of people stood at the pool table, hunched over something. There was a lot of muttering going on, with the occasional hand gesture.

Jack walked over, Ayrton right on his heels and stood behind Zoey, and wrapped his arms around her. Tonight she only wore a tight fitting Audi T-shirt, with skinny jeans.

Zoey was only a few months younger than him. She had dark brown-hair with green highlights, which highlighted her brilliant green eyes. They had met at a car show in Paradise Cove when they were 10 in 2008. Jack had been gawking at a 2002 Pagani Zonda S 7.3, and Zoey at a Koenigsegg CCXR that were parked next to each, and they nearly killed each other because, Jack had been wearing a Pagani shirt, and Zoey a Koenigsegg shirt… Which had led a long debate about which one was better.

They still bickered about it, even today.

Eventually, they had learned that they were going to the same middle school, and they had become good friends (a result of both of their love of cars). When the last dance of 8th grade came around, Jack finally got the guts to ask her out, and she laughed and said yes. From they're they had really hit it off.

When Jack finally got his Golf (two years before driving, so he could modify it) she had actually helped him quite a bit. And eventually, he helped raise money to buy her a car, the S2000, and helped her tune it.

On the pool table, a map of the islands was spread out over it. A red pen laid off to the side, and several scribbles where on the map, but they were all crossed off. Jack observed the map. San Asmira was located on an island about the size of Hawaiian Island, with large mountains on the north of the island, and a sprawling city metropolis in the center, with suburbia and mansions sat in the south. Next to San Asmira, sat Los LaReina. Los LaReina was smaller than San Asmira, similar to size of Honolulu. With only a 2 mile stretch of water in-between the islands called Seafire Straight, they were referred to as the Twin cities. On the map, a long lined connected the two islands, indicating Millennial Bridge, a modern wonder, with a 10 lane roadway/highway enclosed, within a huge suspension bridge. It was closed roof, because it had to be designed for the high-speed winds that sometimes ripped through the Seafire Straight. What was really neat, even if the bridge was twisting in high-winds, the actual road wouldn't move, as it was located with some advanced gyro system, keeping it even.

Every racer on both islands loved the bridge, just for the incredible sounds that would echo throughout the bridge. If you had ever heard a supercars engine in it, you would agree.

Similar to San Asmira, Los LaReina reflected San Asmira in architecture styles which was a modern clean look, and the economy which supported tourism and trade. The economy itself had first been iron ironically. The mountains on the north of San Asmira, called Etna Mountains, had been rich in iron. But, San Asmira's iron resources quickly dwindled, leaving a couple abandoned mines, and a huge port called Port Royal. Which had been revamped into a mega-hub for commercial shipping, and had replaced the iron economy. Overall, the two islands sat about 50 miles off the coast of California, a little south of San Diego.

Geographically, both islands were circular in shape. However, San Asmira had a small mountain range, called the Etna Mountains, surrounding the entire north end of the island, only stopping until it got to around half way The mountains themselves were of medium height, only large enough that they had snow on them year-round.

In San Asmira, there was 8 boroughs: Paradise Cove, Gullwing Beach, Edgewise, Brooksburg, Aiendale, Rosewood, Ravenhood, and Port Royal.

Paradise Cove was the center of wealth, such as company CEOs. It was on the southwest side of town, situated close to the beach, so the view itself was beautiful, and worth 1 million dollars alone. Most of the top tier racers originated from there.

Gullwing Beach was the escape of the island, up north at the end of the Etna Mountains, it was just flat beach, with coral reefs off the coast, and blue clear water. It was also nice because the Etna Mountains blocked any sight of the metropolis area, or other part of the island. So, it was like the west coast version of the Caribbean.

Ravenhood was the area Jack and most of his friends were from. Consisting entirely of Suburbia, it was situated on west side of the island. The roads there were a network of streets, and could be hard to navigate if you weren't familiar with the area. But most racers enjoyed the area, for its streets were filled with easy-to-drift turns, and after about 8 o'clock, the streets would be deserted.

On the opposite side of the island from Ravenhood, there was Rosewood. Similar in name, they shared the same type of suburbia type population. However, Rosewood was known to be huge on street race locations, mostly due to a lack of police patrols. However, the occasional night a massive squad of cops would be randomly in it, and those nights where known as Midnight Terrors. Because of the Midnight Terror, most non-organized racers would avoid Rosewood. Those who did go into Rosewood were usually doing so off a dare.

Edgewise was at the foothills on the north side of the Etna Mountains, it was pretty much a large fishing village, consisting of a high Asian population, with streets that could be a nightmare to navigate depending on the hour. But the racers from there weren't to be estimated. While they favored Japanese sport cars, they surprising weren't very good tuners, relying mostly on crate engines, and cookie-cutter out-of-the-box parts than actual tuning. Edgewise was known to be a hub for its black market, which was why the racers from there used such cookie cutter parts.

Brooksburg was an extremely tiny town area, located on near the peak of the Etna Mountains, it was a cute village, mostly a tourist destination. Because of its location, it snowed there year-round, making it a skiing destination. The roads there were crazy and could be very much dangerous in the winter, but in the summer they were some of the best "driving" roads on both islands. It was also a racing destination because it also provided a way to smoothly turn around for coming back down the mountain.

Aiendale was the largest borough. It actually encompassed the entirety of the downtown city and urban areas. It also had several boroughs, such as the Highline District, which was famous for its 2 dozen skyscrapers right next to each other, especially Olympic Building: the highest skyscraper on the west coast. But they didn't usually show up on a local map just because the boroughs were mostly used by the police and city transportation. It was located on the tip of the island, it was a little bit like Long Island, just smaller.

The highway surrounded the center of the island, touching one and every borough, and crossed the gap over the bridge.

As far as Los LaReina went, the name itself was a little bit of a screw up. It had originally been called LaReina, after the daughter of the Spanish conquer who had found the island. However, when Americans gained possession of the island, an idiot thinking of Los Vegas, and Los Angeles, who obviously didn't know Spanish reported it as Los LaReina. And since the Government back then didn't really know Spanish either, it had officially became that, and nobody had ever bothered to change it. The entire island was pretty much made up of an urban area, completely flat. It's sported even more skyscrapers, so much so, its individual nickname was City of Skyscrapers. It had become a mega-hub during the Iron boom for Iron Refineries, but when it crashed, the two cities had been able to revamp its economy into a more profitable trade hub.

Under certain circumstances, most would agree that Los LaReina had a better street-racing scene, but San Asmira was more diverse.

Anyway, the racers assembled were here to talk about one thing: the race route.

Before each meet, each team would draw a single race track, usually about 5-12 miles. The tracks would be submitted to the tech people, and they would program them into specially hacked GPS systems. Then, they were picked at random, and relayed to GPS units in the cars. It gave the team that designed it an advantage, but all teams would eventually get it. It wasn't a perfect system, then again, no system was.

As far as Jack could tell, so far, they hadn't gotten jack (no pun intended) accomplished.

Angela, Blue-Shifts leader spoke: "Ok, seriously guys, we need to figure out what we're going to do."

Tonight's meet was at on the north-west end called "Iron Works" for its large iron mining facilities. Iron Works was actually a slang term referring to all of the Iron industry sites present, though when racers used it, they usually referred to the Bradly & Whitney Iron Mining Co. Site, which had been the largest on the island. It had been the largest iron mining facility on the west coast, but it had hit hard times in the late 19th century, when the iron started running out, and it was now a defunct area, with a bunch of great turns for drifting, with a lack of cop patrols. San Asmira had been basically known for its raw iron, but its image was changing to a more tropical paradise type area.

Angela was 19, one of the oldest members, and had chestnut colored skin, with brilliant blue eyes. She emphasized them by streaking her long straight hair with blue. She was thin, and wore skinny jeans, and a grey hoodie.

Her family owned a body-shop, so she had grown up around cars. She even owned a 2001 BMW M3 (A result of some idiot never picking it up from the shop) with a M5 V10 engine in it. Though, she didn't race often. Only racing about once per meet, usually the planned one.

Right away, the boy standing next to her, Joey, spoke up "I'm telling you, we should use intercity roads to possibly lose them." Joey was Angela's boyfriend, and basically her second-in-command, if you could call him that. Joey, on the other hand, was of Native American decent, actually coming from the Vesturi Tribe, the natives who had lived on San Asmira Island before the Spanish had arrived. He was tall, and muscular, and had chestnut brown hair. He always wore close fitting t-shirts, and jeans.

His family had been a huge investor in the iron industry in San Asmira since it had started, buying about 15% of "Iron Works" in its first days for about $200, but when they first heard of Iron resources going out, they had pulled their investments out. Making about $5,000,000. They had reinvested it in the trade industry, creating the "Columbian Group", which had boomed since then. He had gotten a 2005 Mazda RX-7 for his 16th birthday, and had modified it with money he had won from low-end, unorganized races. While his family could've easily afford the newer one, Joey had wanted the RX-7 for its huge underground modifications.

"And, I'm telling you, Joey" Angela retorted "It's too risky. Even if most of our cars had modern-day safety standards WITH roll cages, a front-end collision is suicide!"

Joey grumbled something under his breath, and while Jack couldn't hear it, Angela apparently did, because she looked up, and slapped him across the face.

Everybody displayed some sort of sign of amusement, and Jack couldn't help but chuckle at the momentary look of shock that had flashed across Joey face.

After several other ideas, Jack spoke up. To give their cars the advantage, Jack said, we could finish after the strip of road they usually practiced on. It made some sense in Jack's head, as they all knew the road and apexes, and when to turn etc.

That was met with major resistance.

"Teams would know where we practiced, and where our base is!" Angela exclaimed.

Jack flushed. Just because there was alliances and such between teams, that didn't mean teams wouldn't try to sabotage each other's practice sessions and such. It wouldn't take much effort to notice the fact that they were drifting in the same spot as the skids. Or the lit-up

After a momentary pause, it was Emily, who was almost always quite during the planning stages, spoke up "To lose the low-chaps, we should have a dirt section."

Emily had freshly moved to America from Britain, in the pursuit of work for his dad and mother in the construction business, but when it went south in 2008, her father started a new shipping business, and with the high-demand of jobs after the crash in 2008, the business took off. **(NOTE: I'm sorry for that terrible British "Chap", but it's the only way to introduce her character)**

She owned a brand new F-Type R coupe, (A gift for her 16th Birthday). And damn, that thing was sweet. It had the R's Supercharged 5.0L V8, with a new racing Supercharger, but a new 6-speed stick manual. It was silver, with a retro styled racing livery on it that was heavily based off an old E-Type her grandfather had owned, and raced as a road-rally track car that was still in Britain in storage. It also had a little fender enhancement, with a couple exterior racing modifications. Jack really liked it. It was also the most expensive car out of the group.

Nate, the one who owned the Impreza, spoke up next "We could use that trail that leads up the mountain that passes our practice spot, it has a couple bumps that even jars my Impreza" Nate enjoyed rallying over racing. He lived in Brooksburg, so he learned quickly how to rally in winter conditions. And it was soon discovered he had a knack for it.

"Not to mention that our weaker cars are AWD, even though some of them are heavily biased to the back, we'll certainly maintain an advantage over the rear-wheel cars, especially in that one windy part that follows the river." Zoey continued off of him.

They agreed to that plan. Since a lot of the other teams cars had been lowered, a bumpy off-road part would be a nightmare. And while most of their team had lowered cars, they were familiar enough with the route that they knew where the bumps were. And like Zoey said, a lot of the rear-wheel cars would wind up spinning out, and even though Emily, Angela, and a couple others used rear-wheel drive cars, they would be fine as long as they were careful. Besides, they were extremely skilled drivers.

Angela spoke again "We should still have a drifting section."

By that she meant a section that would be faster to drift around turns. A drifting section would also leave behind a lot of front-wheel drive cars, and the AWD cars that had a more even power bias between the front and rear tires. However, it was difficult to come up with a proper place that WASN'T the road their base was on.

"What about that strip I was drifting in the newspaper?" answered Ryan, who had owned the R32 in that article. The Mazda had obviously been Joey. They were the two drifters of the group. They didn't race, they would drift down a section of road one at a time, (or sometimes as a team), and get judged on their technique, angle of drift, speed, and style. The articles picture displayed it as if it was a race, but it was them practicing their coordination for a drifting event.

"That would be perfect, except for the fact we don't have a fast way to get over there." Even though Ryan and Joey wouldn't race, the entire group knew how to drift rather well, Ryan and Joey just knew how to finesse it, and ride the drift to the absolute edge of not spinning out.

That stumped them even further. That road was definitely the closest option, but the issue was, is the only way to get over there is to take a 20-mile road up the mountain, weaving and winding, all around the mountain. It would get them there, though it passed through Brooksburg, which had a roundabout that would be great for turning back around and coming back. Though, coming back down the mountain, there was a cop outpost, while in Brooksburg there was only a small patrol, but they were usually the first to get new equipment, and the revvs of the engines usually echoed off the walls of surrounding mountains, so the cops would definitely hear them.

Particularly at the roundabout.

After sitting in silence for a few minutes, it was Jack that spoke up next. "What about the abandoned Railroad? It has that tunnel, but with our relatively narrow cars," motioning toward Angela "Pardon your BMW, but I think you should be fine, as long as you don't try to do high-angle drifts."

The railroad he was talking about was an old mine-cart track for the miners to ferry iron to the port for it to be shipped to Los LaReina. It had a mile long tunnel, about 10 feet wide which could be treacherous, but that would rule out a lot of wider cars, because the tunnel would down the mountain, with some rather tight turns, anything over 60 mph in a car such as Angela's BMW M3, with its wide body-kit, would be possible suicide. Though it really helped the smaller cars, such as his VW, to gain the advantage.

However, the most dangerous part of the tunnel was the rails, which could be a disastrous to suspensions, and possibly end their entire cars if they hit them hard enough. But years of no use left them covered in dirt, so they hardly protruded, but in parts they could still wreck the suspension.

After a brief pause, they agreed, and finished up the last part of the race: a 4 mile long windy road at the end of a short dirt road that led from the end of the tunnel. Which would lead back towards the meet.

Joey quickly grabbed the map and a pen, and started to sketch and outlines the route in pen.

After that, Angela adjourned them to go and do as they please, as they still had 5 hours until the meet.

About half-of the guys dove for the snacks, and the girls dove for the couches and gaming systems. However, both Jack looked at Zoey, and she nodded, and they both walked out into the garage, Ayrton right behind Jack.

There were a couple other people who were also in the group. There was Makayla Jackson, who was the daughter of an Asian fisherman (who had made a lot of money in his free time fixing cars), she owned a new Subaru BRZ S, which she had turbocharged, and tuned with gold rims, and new Impreza wing on the back. It was obvious that her in Nate where dating. There was also Matthew Taylor, who owned a 1971 Porsche 911 Carrera RS. He had spent all of his money from the time he bought it when he was 12, until now restoring it and upgrading it. And the current car had a new Turbocharged 3.8L Water-Cooled GT2 Flat-6 engine. But it looked completely original from the outside. It was awesome.

The only other person in the shop was Mike (and in extension his Bulldog named Carroll Shelby). Who was underneath his Custom hotrod matte black Z/28, probably tuning something or other. Mike never raced his beauty on the streets (though occasionally an unorganized street race), which was damn shame, as it was powered by a 950 HP NASCAR engine that he had gotten custom tuned from Hennessey (as a one-off).

Mike was the mechanic of the team, and an excellent one at that. Mike actually originated from Texas, before moving to Japan, learning how to tune street cars, then moved back to San Asmira. He was probably one of, if not the best of the tuners in the entire street racing underground. Mike was the oldest members of the team at 24, though nobody gave him grief since he was tuning there cars.

During the day he owned a body shop in inner-city, but in his free-time he would modify their cars. They hadn't used his shop for two reasons 1) having their cars on the lift would take away time for customer cars 2) if they got busted he would be screwed, and 3) It was inner-city, making it easy for other racers & cops to spot.

Walking in he greeted Mike, and with after startling him, causing him to hit his head on the bottom of the car. After cleaning him up, and getting a good cussing, Jack and Zoey started on the car.

Ayrton, who had come in with Jack, had ran over to the corner where Shelby laid, pestering Shelby, before jumping back as Shelby jumped at him. Jack snickered a little, and so did Mike. Though, Ayrton then proceeded slower, and just laid on the separate cushion.

In the garage 1 of the 3 lifts where empty. The Camaro occupying one of them. However, on the third lift, though not raised, was an old Corvette C3. The paint was a faded silver, it was shocking the low amount of rust it had acquired.

The car had been an old barn find that had been in a shed in the middle of the woods about 500 feet behind the shop, sitting inside underneath a load of junk. It had originally sat outside for half-a-decade until about 3 weeks ago when Jack had the idea to make it into a custom classic. He had asked Zoey if she wanted to help, and she accepted.

It had then become Jack's and Zoey's personal couple project. "Their first child" as the other members have joked. A project that they hoped would leave them with a rat rod, suited for carrying supplies and tools to meets. Another reason Jack and Zoey wanted to build this, they hoped to arrive together in a more ordinate style. They also wanted to test their relationship.

Though, as of now, nothing had been done on it. It had been sitting on the lift for 2 weeks. During that time, Jack and Zoey had been getting together a parts list, and then saving up for and ordering the parts for it, (which was easy, with the stream of money coming from racing).

Now they were ready to start the full-scale operation that his would be.

Without a word, Jack walked over and pulled the blow torch out and over to the area, before Zoey lug the toolbox over as well.

The plan was to start dismantling it. And since it had been sitting for god knows how long, they were expecting absolutely everything to be seized and not work. Which was great, since the only thing the two wanted were the panels, the frame, and some other small parts.

Before anything, Jack lifted the Vette just a little, so that they could directly take off the tires. However, they soon learned that they would have to fight this car for everything, as they blow torched the 20-some rusted bolts out of the rims. Zoey had gone around with an air-compressed gun, the type they had used to use in NASCAR, and F1. And marked all the ones that she couldn't get… which turned out to be about 75% of them. That job alone took them 30 minutes, because the rims just refused to budge.

After they had gotten the rims off, they rolled them outside, it wasn't as easy as they thought. Since they were flat. They couldn't really roll them, since they were also made from a heavy steel. They kept falling over, driving them crazy. Though, when they did finally roll them outside, they just left them, since they would probably reuse them again (as a joke).

Jack then grabbed the other blow-torch for Zoey, and the two of them set about torching all the under-workings i.e. the Exhaust, transmission, engine, etc. off. The exhaust fell off easily, along with the rest of the engine once they got the bolts off. Apparently it had sat for such a long time, that jack had to take an old metal bar and whack the engine (and in extension) the transmission out. Since it was a front-engine, rear-wheel drive car, it was a bit spread out, making everything a little painful.

The entire assembly fell to the floor with a bang. The engine only put out 238 HP, which would not do. Instead, they had plans to use a new LS9 engine.

Going back to the Vette, they removed the rest of the drivetrain, which was pretty easy since all they had to do was, and separated the panels away from the frame, since there was no way they would be able to work with them as a whole.

Most of the hardware would be unusable, but that didn't bother them concerning the new upgrades they had planned. The parts that were mostly unusable were the Steering system, and every single hardware piece.

They removed the panels, moved them to the bench were they started sanding them down with a heavy-grit sand paper. This was the painful part. Einstein once said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result". And it applied here. It was a grueling process, accomplishing nothing in a short period. Instead stretching for hours and hours on end. Though, the Nissan wasn't that bad, all they had to sand was some surface rust and sand the old paint off.

The entire plan was to restore the exterior of the Vette to near factory standard just in the color of the C6 ZR1 (while the C7 was out, the color was awesome), with a body kit and some stickers (basically no Fast & Furious type decals). Then, drop a LS9 engine into it, plus dual high-boost turbos, a new suspension, new drivetrain, 2 bottles of Nitrous, drop the ride height, update the interior, and replace the seats with racing bucket seats, a roll cage, and replace the transmission with a 5-speed transmission.

Jack was a little bit of a purist. He believed that one manufactures engine belonged in that car. A Chevy engine did not belong in a non-Chevy chassis (pardon Cadillac). That was why his GTI had a newer GTI engine. While other more powerful engines existed, and could fit, he didn't think those engines belonged. Even if he wasn't, buying the R32 made sense since it had been a complete package with the drivetrain, engine, transmission, and some modifications all together, and he knew they would all likely fit. Albeit, that last part turned out to be a lie, as just about everything had to be modified for the smaller Mk. I.

Once off, the only thing was the chassis, which was a metal mess of rust. Though it also was the springboard or first step of the project. And it was bare. Kind of like the canvas before the artist goes to town on it.

However, just as they were about to unbox the first part (a new aluminum panel to weld into place of the rust), Angela came out and told them that it was time to go. She had a certain glint of amusement in her face when they saw the dirty state of their clothing.

From there, they all walked out into the wreck room, where everybody was just getting their coats on. They walked out together, and Jack got into an argument with Nathan over the advantages of ride height. Jack though a low-ride height was good because 1) it looked better 2) it didn't let as much under the car, preventing lift and finally, 3) it prevented drag from all the underside pieces. Though, Nate wouldn't listen, mostly because he was stubborn, and biased because he favored rallying.

Though the conversation came to an end as they actually went to get in there cars.

Jack was one of the last of the people to start their engines, and the noise that all the engines made was that of a beautiful chorus of all their individual hard work to tune those cars to sound like they did. From the roar of the V10 out of Angela's BMW, to the low growl emitting from modified exhausts out of the two Subaru engines out of Makayla's BRZ and Nate's WRX STI, and the British scream of a V8 ready to pounce that was Emily's Jaguar. Then Jack turned on his car, and the hearty rumble of the ever familiar in-line six, and the faint whirl of the turbos.

One at a time they pulled out. Angela first, then Joey, Nate, Makayla, Emily, Matthew, who was in such a rush, wound up spinning out, much to the amusement of the rest of the group, then Zoey, and last of all Jack, because his car was the only car large enough to carry the pop-up and chairs for their spot at the event.

From there, the entire team drove the speed limit, showing off their cars, and revving there engines in the presence of other racers. Most of which were in similar size (racer wise) to them. As they coasted throughout the city, Jack saw some things that troubled him.

The wealthiest group in the city known as the Alpha Dogs. They were famous for their high-end rare super cars. The cars they used were usually rare (though 99% of the time, they were illegal copies) and tonight they had shiny new Ferrari LaFerraris for their top tier racers, box new Lamborghini Hurcans for the middle, and (what troubled him most of all), was a half-dozen of Alfa Romeo 4Cs which would be racing with him, all in the Alpha Dog's iconic Matte White with Red paint jobs.

The Alpha Dogs were also known as the Widowers, as they were also the most violent team, and had actually 'widowed' a number of girlfriends and fiancés. The VW Gold R32 that Jack had used for the underworking of his car had been a result of a guy pissing a widower off. Actually, the Alpha Dogs didn't have any allies, mostly running off of money from drugs, and other illegal activities that most other teams didn't partake in.

Other than that, nothing else stood out. Several times they had seen a cop, but none of them got flashed or pulled over (Luckily). Though, when they neared the Middle of city, which had a single round-a-bout called the 'Heart of the City', a 2001 V10 Viper ARC had raced up the side followed by cops, but when he reached the roundabout and went to turn, a large moving truck slammed into, sending the Viper spinning to the side. When they passed it, the entire rear of the viper was demolished, and the driver was off to the side, sitting on the curb, his head in his hands. Even from where Jack had been, he could hear the groan of metal and smashing noise, when the roar of the V10 had been silenced.

Arriving at the Bradley and Whitney Site at about 5:30, they made their way over to the northwest most area of the parking lot area. The electro music was blaring. It was so loud, they had first heard it from ½ mile away. Once they arrived at seen of beauty sprawled in-front of them. The 'parking lot' was about the size of a 4 football fields, with old iron mining equipment lieing around, most rusted and ancient, but an interesting back drop. It was packed with cars of every single make and model. Jack's favorite car was a Pagani Huayra owned by a guy named Felix, who had custom modified to a "Zonda R" type status. Zoey's favorite car was a brand new Koenigsegg One:1, that had the same paint layout as a Koenigsegg Agera R. The biggest strain on their relationships was the fact that Jack liked Pagani, and Zoey liked Koenigsegg

Overall the meet size attracted about 1500 cars (though only about half actually wound up racing per night), with races averaging about 20 people. Some people came all the way from the east coast to participate in some events. Overall, it was the largest underground street racing ring in the world.

The cops were dangerous, but they were easy to fool. Even if they knew where the meet was taking place, they couldn't crackdown on the meet, because there was no proof that they had all raced. Hell, only half of them did race! Though, if they did discover the meet, they would patrol the surrounding areas and calling in "The wolves". So as soon as a race started, they would be right on them, ripping the race apart. Though, they were easily fooled via Social Media. They thought the meet was on the other side of town, at the port.

The cop cars ranged from old Crown Victorias supped up by racers who had been caught, and were willing to help to get a bit off their sentencing. The higher end cops used Dodge Challengers SRT, also tuned by racers. Though, there was an elite unit of cops. Only 24, they used a choice of confiscated racer cars. That group was nicknamed "The Wolves", because they hunted in packs of 3-4, patrolling 2 miles from each other so they quickly get to each other.

This was what they all lived for. The rush, the trill and excitement of racing and winning. Sure, street racing could be looked at as illegal, and a contact sport. But, even the cops got a thrill out of chasing racers. It was the trill of driving fast. Adrenaline, plus the hearty growl of any engine was enough to send most racers and cops alike going a little fan-girly on the inside.

As Jack entered the parking lot, following Zoey, he nearly clipped a satin Red Ferrari 430 Scuderia. The guy was heading to the start point, which was one end of a quarter mile strip through the middle of the cars, after which they would hit the streets. The guy was too focused to notice, and Jack didn't have time to honk his horn. Which was okay, because it was very much possible a fight would've broken out.

Continuing behind Zoey, they wound through the dirt pathways that crisscrossed and outlined teams parking areas. In most of the currently occupied areas, teams had bought old rusted out 50 gallon barrels for a central fire that stood in the center of the plot that people would usually surround with their foldable chairs. Usually, teams also brought a foldable table as a platform for discussions and refreshments, with a pop-up overhead tent.

Jack had learned to bring about 3 flashlights, and 2 lanterns. Usually because Jack would misplace about 2 of the flashlights amongst his possessions, whether it be chucking it into the back of the car when it was his turn to race, or leaving it at the table.

The two lanterns were excellent for last minute tunes. Such as checking bolts on new parts, or whichever. He used them so much, he had actually installed hook on the bottom/inside of the hood to hold them.

Blue-Shifts parking area was all the way in the back right of the meet, on the corner of it all. When Jack finally pulled in, about half of the team was waiting expectantly for him, since he was carrying there associated chairs. Popping the trunk, by the time he had gotten out, grabbed Zoey's and his individual chairs, and shut the trunk; everybody had pretty much set up.

Handing Zoey her chair, Jack quickly unfolded the chair. He then walked back to the car to grab some wood for fire. It wasn't extremely cold, as it was the beginning of spring, and temperatures usually averaged around 60* in San Asmira. It was quite tropical.

But, the fires were an excellent source of light, serving not only as light for conversation, but they also served as Street Lamps, and a navigation tool, so teams knew were there individual area actually was. They usually burned for 3-5 hours, which was about how long meets lasted.

Sitting by the fire next to Zoey, just talking was one of Jacks favorite part. Sometimes he hated to go racing, because he was having such an interesting conversation. Ranging in topic from sports, news, politics, school, and cars. Usually cars though.

They sat there for 30 minutes. Listening to chatter from the police, and chatted about cars. Turbocharged vs Supercharged was tonight's topic. Jack was a firm believer in Turbocharged because cars didn't lose any power to it, while Supercharged were more effective, part of the power cancelled out, something that did bode well with Jack.

When 6:15 rolled around, Angela came up to them. "Guys, it's our race is coming up, if you want to race in it, I recommend you get your stuff together."

Most of the others got up, Zoey and Jack included. Joey and Matt were sitting it out obviously. So was Angela surprisingly. Then again, if she wreaked her BMW, she would be screwed. Her parents knew she raced, so if she wrecked, she would never be able to race again. Emily was racing though, though her parents only had a suspicion that she did race.

As Jack got in the car, he pulled his helmet out of the back seat. Racers used helmets to protect their identity from speed cameras, cops, sore losing racers, and pedestrians. It was also helpful in case of a crash. Though, you could tell a lot from a helmet. Jacks for example; was flat black, with carbon fiber trim and a chrome visor. On the sides, several bomb pin-ups were there, marking the number of victories Jack had. A total of 15. On the other hand, Zoey had a complete flat hot pink helmet, with a smoke visor, the same type of helmet the Stig used from Top Gear. While Zoey's real favorite color was Navy blue, nothing would wound a man's pride more than to be passed by a girl, in a hot pink helmet. In an Honda S2000.

As he pulled it over his head, he closed his eyes. Finally tying the strap, he opened his eyes, to see a slightly tinted version of the world he had just seen 15 seconds ago. All the sounds before were now muffled. He pulled some racing gloves out of the glove box, and put them on slowly. Thinking all the way. He finally pulled the glove down, and rested a hand on the ignition, turning it.

A roar erupted from the space in-front of him. That of an in-line 6. Then he heard a slight wine as the turbo-chargers spooled up. He pushed on the brake. Releasing the parking gear, it rolled back a little. Jack hit the clutch and shifted it into reverse. The engine pitch increased slightly.

He caressed the gear knob, trying to call his racing mind. Adrenaline through his veins, coursing through him. He loved the adrenaline rush, but it could make him over-drive the car. Which could wind up making him lose.

He turned around, releasing the brake and slowly backed out. Once he back out to the dirt road, he switched to first, and gave the throttle a quick jab, hearing a responding roar.

He followed Zoey, who was behind Makayla. Emily leading the caravan, Matthew in-between the two.

They reached the start of the ¼ mile, and lined up horizontally. Before Jack stretched a long dirt path, the sides packed with racers and lights. Though, the other cars bothered him. The Alpha Dogs were in about 3 Alfa Romeo 4Cs like earlier, but there was also absolutely gorgeous matt white and black rims Alfa Romeo 8C Disco Volante, something that should be in the 2nd tier, if not the 3rd tier. Jack couldn't focus on it though, as the starting girls walked over, a hankies and/or towels in hand. Something that also should've been disturbed him even more, was the fact he hadn't seen it earlier when they had come to the meet.

Some other competition was in he saw a lowered 3rd gen Civic hatchback with a modified air-cooler that had pipes right in front of the hood, a first-gen Subaru Impreza that caught his eye with pathetic spinner wheels (Jack had always thought they were stupid), a yellow Ford Focus ST, a Flat Grey 5th gen VW Golf GTi, and a Nissan 360Z that looked like something out of Fast & Furious.

Jacks hand drifted toward the shifter, his foot pushing the brake, and the other foot jabbing the throttle revving it slowly. He looked to the right and saw the 8C, and on the left he saw Zoey, focused intently on the flags.

Jack kept the girl in his peripheral vision, something he had learned from reading online. You could lose precious milliseconds switching your eyes back to the road. He saw the girl raise her arms, and the noise level of the engines increased dramatically.

Then, the girl lowered her arms, the towel falling. Though, from Jacks perspective, the arms moved slowly. His feet released the brake, moving over to the clutch as he did. Even though he didn't think to do it, He also floored the accelerator, full throttle. Pedal to the metal racing.

And so the race had begun.

**WARNING: EACH CHAPTER TAKES ME UP TO 3 MONTHS (-ish) TO WRITE, THOUGH REVIEWS AND FOLLOWS HELP ME FEEL LIKE THIS IS GOOD AND STUFF, AND MAKES ME PICK WRITING THIS OVER GAMES, SO YEAH.**

**UNTIL NEXT TIME!**

**SINCERELY****,**

**STEALTH WORKS**


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